Blog

In the Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015, which provides a periodic snapshot of faculty members’ practices and perceptions related to scholarly communications and information usage, we found that humanist respondents differed from those in other disciplines in the value they assign to and ways that they use print and electronic resources. Relative to respondents in other disciplines, humanists most highly value print versions of monographs, are less comfortable with…

Blog

In the Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015, which provides a periodic snapshot of faculty members’ practices and perceptions related to scholarly communications and information usage, we found that there did not appear to be a trend towards a format transition for monographs. If anything, faculty members’ preference for using scholarly monographs in various ways in print format rather than digital format had increased since the previous cycle of the…

Publication

This report summarizes what we learned about the evolving environment for digital printing and electronic distribution technologies, and how these technologies are impacting the academic press community. It attempts to weave together a wide range of perspectives into a coherent picture of the opportunities and challenges created by digital technologies for scholarly presses. It is based primarily on interviews with…

Blog

The future of the monograph is of great interest to many humanists, scholarly publishers, and academic librarians. Last year, I wrote an issue brief, Stop the Presses: Is the monograph headed toward an e-only future?, that suggested the monograph’s digital future would prove to be much more complicated than what has been experienced thus far for journals. Yesterday, ARL’s fall forum, provocatively titled Wanted Dead or Alive – The Scholarly…

Blog

Academic authors in the humanities and social sciences often wait three or more years to see the first reviews of their scholarly monographs. Why does it take so long? As Oona Schmid, director of publishing at the American Anthropological Association (AAA), describes in our latest issue brief, it is because book reviewing still relies on a print-centric system. Thanks to funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the AAA is…

Blog

At the end of March, OCLC Research, the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), and Ohio State University, hosted a very interesting symposium on print collections management. The symposium’s focus was on how collections of print books might be more effectively managed given changing usage patterns and needs for print books, and changing priorities for the allocation of library spaces. The symposium’s jumping-off point was a new research report by Brian…

Blog

Stop the Presses: Is the monograph headed toward an e-only future? Can we expect the print monograph to disappear anytime soon? While the road to a fully digital future for scholarly monographs is not clearly in sight, the widespread availability of ebooks is already transforming researchers’ reading habits. As librarians and publishers consider their options, they must take into account how the usage behavior of academics is evolving. In this…

Publication

Can we expect the print monograph to disappear anytime soon? While the road to a fully digital future for scholarly monographs is not clearly in sight, the widespread availability of ebooks is already transforming researchers' reading habits. As librarians and publishers consider their options, they must take into account how the usage behavior of academics is evolving. In this…

Blog

In late September, I participated in “Art Books & Ebooks: A Difficult Conversation?” an event hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, organized by Ross Day, Collections Development Librarian at the Met, and focused on the future of books, e-books, and museum publishing in a digital age. Participants reflected on the changing environment for publishing and collections development and management, focusing on how monographs in the…

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Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit service that helps the academic and cultural communities serve the public good and navigate economic, technological, and demographic change. We deliver strategic guidance, research, and publications through two program areas: Educational Transformation and Libraries & Scholarly Communication.